It wasn’t us wot voted for him

I’m still pondering Ellie and Miss Dagurreotype’s ‘We didn’t vote for him either’ comments [10.11.06] about George Bush and the politics of fear. I sympathise with them – I’ve worn variations on that tee-shirt with pride all my adult life. I just wish that I could climb more sympathetically inside the psyche of those who do vote for George Bush .. for Ian Paisley … I suspect that what makes this kind of politics fairly repugnant the world over is the way in which simplistic religion is used to give it drive – and to make it hard to challenge. ‘If you’re against me, you’re against God as well.’ And beyond that, I think that the way in which people describe their country tells you a bit. ‘Nation’ is ok – tho’ I suspect it is becoming uncomfortably exclusive now that communities are so astonishingly diverse. But when people start referring to the ‘land’, I think you are in trouble – as in ‘homeland security’ or Billy Wright, the loyalist paramilitary leader, who talked about the choice to be made between ‘land and faith.’